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During the Independent Game Conference held in Austin Nov 20-21 (2008) we got a chance to show an updated version of our Austin GDC demo of Box Macabre at DEMO NIGHT. It was a great experience and we met a lot of other great local indie developers (more on them further down).

Since we are creating Box Macabre with the aid of the TorqueX engine from GarageGames it was really exciting (and intimidating) to meet one of GG’s own, Davey Jackson, at the show and having him play the demo. He seemed to really like it and had a lot of great feedback for us. We hope he went back to Oregon and talked us up with the rest of the GG team.

Overall we had a wonderful reception of the game. Even the ladies love little Box and the majority said that he was adorable. That was an unexpected side effect; initially I just wanted to make an iconic character that was super basic. I did not expect girls to be drawn to the game because of the cute factor. One thing that is conscious is the effort to keep the game gender neutral.

Our designer, Brit Baker, ran our demo table and I believe he never got a moment’s rest. From doing interviews for TiVo and Gamepro, Brit had his hands full demoing the game for players and journalists alike.

During the show we met Aaron Murray of Tandem Games. What a great guy! He was showing his recently released browser based rpg, DOMAIN OF HEROES. His previous efforts include an innovative puzzle game licensed by VMC Software through Critical Mass Interactive called CRUNCH TIME (which is available for free on his site). Keep an eye out for a potential upcoming team-up between Perfect Dork Studios and Tandem Games!

Also worth mentioning is Gendai Games’ Joshua “Yoshi” Seaver who was demoing his team’s new iPhone development environment, GameSalad, that will allow casual game developers to create fully functioning apps without needing the years of coding experience. Yoshi was a part of a panel discussing iPhone development and the various ups and downs that come with it. Also on the panel was GarageGames’ Davey Jackson and Brian Greenstone of Pangea Software (creator of Enigmo, CroMag Rally and Bugdom).

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS FROM IGC:

-I met with Rusty Buchert of Sony and got a chance to show him the Box Macabre demo privately. He gave me all sorts of info on how I could get the game on the PSN. This is not an official announcement, but it is very likely that we will be porting the game to PSN once the XNA and PC versions are released!

-I sat in on a great panel discussing diversity in games, featuring my friend Donald Harris. I am now much more aware of the lack of real diversity of cultures and genders within the mainstream gaming circle and how we can begin to change that. Donald and I spent a lot of time at IGC discussing potential projects together so don’t be surprised when we eventually move forward with one of them.

That is all for now. I hope to post another update soon so check back in a few weeks!